


Fever Dream

by roryfox



Category: Rhett & Link
Genre: Angst, Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, blood mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-11
Updated: 2016-12-11
Packaged: 2018-09-08 00:04:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8821669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roryfox/pseuds/roryfox
Summary: In which 16 year old Link realizes his true feelings.





	

**Author's Note:**

> These people are fabrications, the story based on nothing except the fact that today while I was running outside it began to snow. Also the fact that I've been binge watching YouTube.  
> 
> 
> aesthetic board to accompany the fic: https://acryptidfabrication.tumblr.com/post/154357124385/when-he-makes-his-way-back-home-when-he-turns

He can taste blood in his mouth. It's metallic and jarring. He wipes the side of his mouth and continues running.

His legs are about to give out but he can't stop. It's dark, the moon hidden by a sheet of grey clouds, and no one can see him. No one is watching. He's vaguely aware of the way home. He's been running down the same road in a straight line, he'd just have to turn back. Turn back. Turn back.

His lungs are on fire and his vision is blurry and he can't tell if he's crying because his face is numb from the cold. He probably is. He always is.

Rhett used to make fun of him when they were kids, that he cried more than he laughed. He cried whenever he broke a crayon, he cried when he lost the school spelling bee, he cried when he fell off the swings the first, second, third time Rhett dared him to jump. Each time he chickened out last minute but was already halfway off and fell on his face. Once he almost broke his arm. He’d cried and Rhett had laughed.

But then he took Link to the nurse and stole a lollipop from the front desk for him. That night he'd even let Link be player one when they played video games.

He stops running, resting his hands on his knees and letting out a long, shaky breath. The blood is still in his mouth, sitting on his tongue. It had been a boy from class. He’d cornered Link an hour earlier, when he was on his way home. It had already been dark, December taking away the sun. He'd told Link that he knew, he knew his secret.

He knew Link liked men.

And being a 16 years old in 1994, in a small primarily Christian town in North Carolina, it was a death sentence.

Link didn't bother trying to figure out how he knew, didn't bother trying to deny it, he’d just turned and started walking away. That was when the boy had grabbed his shoulder, turning Link to face him, and punched him in the mouth.

Hence the blood. Hence the bruise forming on his cheek. Hence the small wet spot on his jacket from here the boy had spit on him.

Hence the words "dirty faggot" echoing in his head.

He'd gone home and put his bag down in his room, putting on his hood to hide his face. He'd mumbled that he was going for a walk. Then he'd gone outside and started running.

He wishes he could run far enough to reach the ocean. Then keep going, keep running, the water up to his knees and then his chest, up until it reaches the bottom of his chin. And then he would swim. Swim until his arms couldn't movie and his mouth and eyes were filled with water. And he would turn on his back and look up at the sky. He'd search the stars before closing his eyes and letting himself drown.

Because he's in love with his best friend.

It had happened a few of weeks before. He'd been sick, high fever and coughing. He'd been confined to his bed and having vivid fever dreams. He’d dreamed that he and Rhett were in an old van, driving on a coastal highway. All the windows were down and he had his feet on the dashboard, hand hanging lazily outside of the car. Rhett was driving, fingers tapping on the steering wheel. Link tore his eyes away from the ocean and looked at his friend. He was looking back.

Link was hit with a very strong urge to reach over and hold Rhett’s hand. To intertwine their fingers and to kiss his face and drive until they ran out of gas. He wanted to wake up next to Rhett every morning and take pictures of him in sunlight and make him breakfast in bed. All he did was stare into Rhett’s eyes and clench his fists. Then Rhett reached out slowly, not breaking eye contact, and put his hand over Link’s.

He’d woken up and the feeling hadn’t gone away. He’d found himself staring at Rhett’s hands during class, noticing how his eyes were drawn to Rhett’s lips whenever he talked. His awakening was, quite literally, a fever dream.

Link didn’t know how his classmate knew. He barely knew himself. But he’d had more dreams, as if the only way his brain could get through to him was when his defenses were completely down. They were fragments of moments, like Rhett kissing him slowly in the back of a classroom with his hand on Link’s thigh. Or Rhett biting his neck and making Link shudder and gasp underneath his touch. And the few times that it got further and Link can only remember arching his back and calling Rhett’s name, his skin on fire and mouth slack. He always woke up breathless and sheets sticky.

He hadn’t told Rhett. He hadn’t told anyone. How the boy had known he didn’t know, he barely cared. It’s not like anyone would believe him if he started spreading it around. Link would brush it off and laugh, Rhett would make it into a joke between them. And it would go away.

But the feelings wouldn’t. And so Link began running again, his legs aching and his breathing shallow. The feelings would stay long after the rumor faded away because they were true. He’s in love with his best friend and for the rest of his life he will hold that inside of him, deep in his mind and in a small compartment in his heart. He’ll have to find a way to keep it to himself, to cope and repress and survive. He’ll find a woman and he’ll marry her and find a way to love her or to at least trick himself into believing he does. He will have kids and a house and maybe a dog and a job and Rhett will have the same somewhere else. And Link will be fine. He will be fine with it all.

But the thought makes him nauseous and he stops running, afraid he will throw up. HIs whole life, he knows, from this point on will be a lie. Or, at least, a fabrication. Everything that he is has changed. And he will spend the rest of his life denying it, pushing it away, finding ways to live without thinking about who he really is, who his body is aching for.

But when he’s touching himself in the shower his mind will still cling to Rhett claiming him with his hands and his tongue while he whispers “you’re mine, you’re all mine” and Link will come in his hand with a shaky moan. Then he will spend an extra ten minutes in the shower trying to wash the thoughts out of his mind but he won’t be able to.

He is crying now, the tears pouring down his frozen cheeks as his body shakes and he lets out strangled sobs. There is a profound sense of loss in his gut, like he’s about to give up the most important thing in his life. When he makes his way back home, when he turns back, he will have to let it all go. He will have to begin compartmentalizing and locking things away until he is nothing but a very carefully molded version of what he believes he should be. And part of him will die.

It begins to snow. His eyes are closed and his body is vibrating as he cries but he can feel it. It lands on his face first, then in his hair and on his hands. He opens his eyes and in the darkness he can see white falling from the sky. He looks up at the sky and watches. Everything is quiet. He reaches out his hand and a couple of snowflakes fall onto his palm, melting on his skin. He then wipes his eyes and face, running his fingers through his hair.

People will be worried. Rhett will be worried. And as much as he wants to lay down on the side of the road and let the snow fall on him, covering him until his body is so numb he can’t feel anything, he doesn’t.

He turns back and begins locking things away.


End file.
